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www.churchonthursday.com
Polysics
Hey Bob! My Friend
Asian Man Records
2001
Tokyo's Polysics are self-described "New Wave
Mutants". I don't know what it is with the 
Japanese
and their fetish for genetic accidents (i.e. Godzilla, Mothra, etc). Maybe
it has something to do with that little gift of airmail we sent them back
in '45. Hey Bob! My Friend may be a mutant strain of new wave (as
far as Polysics are concerned), but to me it sounds like somebody pouring
acid on the circuit board of an Atari 2600.
The disc begins with "Sunnymaster", which starts out sounding like a Pachinko machine that's run amok, then switches to Boredoms-style noise. The Japanese seem to excel at this type of weirdness--which I find perplexing. Every time I meet a Japanese person and ask them if they've heard of any of the weird bands they export to The States, they insist that they haven't. All I can figure is that there is a contingent of Japanese musicians who make music solely for U.S. underground audiences. It's the same, I imagine, as Indians who set up roadside stands sellling "dream catchers" and other miscellaneous junk that possesses no real significance to their culture. This sort of deliberately misleading capitalist enterprise is especially effective on liberal Bay Area-ites, I've noticed, who never doubt the benevolence of our former adversaries (who conveniently reside on separate continents or reservations), even though the prairie plains are smattered with the scalped skulls of settlers and Pearl Harbor is the most blatant testemonial to an underhanded sneak attack in American history.
Anyway, back to Polysics. I have failed to mention thus far how much of a fool I am for weird Japanese music--the weirder, the better. I tolerate a degree of weirdness from the Japanese that I would never accept from any nationality excluding the Germans. If they want to sing songs about toaster ovens, or electrical sockets, or monkeys, or whatever (instead of normal stuff like drinking and girls), more power to 'em! I get a great big kick out of it. I do not know what any of the songs on Hey Bob! My Friend are about. I don't even know what some of the titles mean. I have a strange suspicion that "Married To A Frenchman" is not about being married to a Frenchman. I assume that "Hot Stuff" is not a Donna Summer cover. As far as songs like "Buggie Technica" and "Plus Chicker", I bet the Polysics don't even know what the hell they're singing about.
Some of you might assume that because the Polysics are on Asian Man Records, that they are a Ska band...you are wrong. This is just a bunch of demented noise that I love very much. Other fans of early DEVO, The Boredoms, Anal Cunt, Fuck Geez, East Montague Death Metal, Kick Axe, Dog Killer, Amish Rakefight, Melt Banana and Loudness might enjoy it, too.
--Felix Thursday